Sydney and Calvin Have a Baby: A Book Review

One of the coolest things about blogging is getting free books in exchange for sharing my honest opinion of them here. As I might have mentioned, I love books. I love them so much that I have big stacks of them and so sometimes I don’t review them as quickly as I am supposed to.
But not this one! Sydney and Calvin Have a Baby has such a compelling premise that I could hardly wait to read it. And since William had to have a root canal this week, I had a perfect opportunity to do it all in one sitting. In fact, I had just a few pages left and I read them while sitting in the Arby’s drive-thru on the way home because I just HAD to know what happened.
I read a lot of young adult novels because my daughter loves the genre and brings them to my attention. But this one is different for a couple of reasons–one, it’s a specifically Catholic novel, and two, it starts with a rape and ends with a baby.
That’s pretty heavy stuff for a teen novel, and let’s throw in a couple of deaths, an orphan, mean girls, a close call at the abortion clinic, and dysfunctional families aplenty. But the lovable, quirky main characters and the fresh narrative voice (Calvin, whose British accent you can almost hear) add humor and humanity without ever glossing over the truly terrible events in the story.
Perhaps when you think of a Catholic novel you imagine characters who pray all the time, lots of priests and nuns, and plenty of preaching. That’s not what you’ll find here. The Catholicism is mostly background–the kids go to a Catholic school, the families are nominally Catholic in that they go to Mass on Sunday and not much else. The only truly devout Catholic we see is Calvin, and the Catholic heart of the story is in its redemptive message.
I enjoyed this novel so much that I would love to read more about Sydney and Calvin. I would especially recommend it for a Catholic youth discussion group.

Sock Religious

Stay Close to Christ

Pink Salt Riot

Kindred Forest Co

Catholics Online

Pinterest

Follow me on Twitter

Life in Every Limb on Facebook

I feel pretty good when I read this list.~ A Grandparent’s Wisdom on Parenting ~

1. Let your child be a child. Children are not little adults.

2. Don’t have too many rules, especially when they’re little. They’re not going to remember them all anyway.

3. Pick your battles. It won’t work to make an issue out of everything your child does that you don’t like.

4. The greatest gift you can give your child besides your love is your time. Whenever possible, interrupt what you are doing to take time for them. Many things you need to do can be put off until later but many things your child does only happen once, and you don’t want to miss them.

5. Don’t micromanage your child’s behavior. It isn’t necessary (or productive in the long run) to try to control everything he or she says or does.

7. Kids get tired. When they do, it’s usually futile to try to reason with them to get them to do what you want.

8. Don’t say things to your own child that you would never dream of saying to someone else’s child.

9. Whatever stage your child is in, remember: this, too, shall pass, and they will move on to another stage. (This may be better or worse than the previous one!)

10. Don’t let mealtime become a battle zone. No child has ever starved to death yet because they didn’t eat everything on their plate.

11. Read to your child.

12. When your child starts talking, listen. What they say is important to them, and kids have great things to say.

13. Spend some time tucking your child into bed each night.

14. It’s good to find a church family to help you raise your child. You need others to support you. Your child needs to establish a good foundation of values and truth. If he or she doesn’t get this early in life, they might get it later and from someone else you may not like.

15. Take time every day to enjoy your child and relish this role God has blessed you with.

(Postscript: my dad says some of these are things he did, and some are things he wishes he’d done. ❤️) …

Timeline Photos"Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you." – Luke 14 #SundayGospel bit.ly/2ZpzEtS…

"Arsonists have set God’s Cathedral aflame. In the Amazon rainforest, home to hundreds of thousands of animal species, 40,000 plant species, and nearly a million indigenous people, fires are raging, destroying the ecological buttresses of one of the most biodiverse and important ecosystems in the world. These creatures are a testament to God’s good creation, a living, breathing cathedral, shaped by the evolutionary forces of God, and entrusted to human hands." …

"Baby loss is not just a story of grief, of pain and of tears, its a beautiful story of love and of celebration.

So let’s scream from the rooftops that all children matter, those that are here and those that we desperately miss."I haven’t shared this picture for quite some time so wanted to post it again this evening. These are my children…the ones that ran ahead and the ones who I get the honour to raise.

Someone said to me in an interview recently well you are the mother of two, I kindly corrected them. I am the mother of 7, just because five of my children didn’t get to grow up on the earth, doesn’t stop them from existing.

I also wanted to say this…Baby loss is not just a story of grief, of pain and of tears, its a beautiful story of love and of celebration.

So let’s scream from the rooftops that all children matter, those that are here and those that we desperately miss. ❤️

I am so unbelievably touched that SO many people have liked and shared this image, THANK You. Please feel free to also like my page and see future posts and quotes, I would love for you to become a FB friend x